


though it hurts we keep on climbing (kill our way to heaven)

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: this whole damn city thinks it needs you (but not as much as I do) [5]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, SKAM (Spain)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Joana and Cris were Victors of the same Games, POV Joana, Prostitution, Victors, Victors supporting each other, hi i love my girls and so they get a fic, mentions of Nicotino and Evak, nothing shown but a hell of a lot alluded to, pov cris, sorry i haven't posted recently i've been working on my novel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:54:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22095964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: Cris kisses Joana's forehead, just as she has done since the middle of their Games, just as she has done every night that Joana has come back from appointments, sometimes stoic, sometimes crying, sometimes so far gone into her own head that Cris can't read her emotions, can do nothing but hold Joana until she comes back to herself.Cris knows that Joana feels safer in her arms than she does anywhere else in the Capitol, just as Joana knows that Cris feels the same with her.Joana saved her in those Games. She continues to save her, every night that she goes out and lays with those Capitolites, let them use her body as they wish.And now it's Cris' turn to save Joana back. She's going to help the Revolution, however possible, doing whatever needed, if it means getting Joana out of here, out of the beds of those Capitolites and to freedom, where Joana can smile and paint pictures that aren't just for Capitolites and kiss Cris in the open and never, ever again have to bear the darkened gaze of Capitolites.(A night in the lives of the Partner-Victors of the 78th Hunger Games, from each of their perspectives.)
Relationships: Cristina "Cris" Soto Peña & Isak Valtersen & Martino Rametta, Cristina "Cris" Soto Peña/Joana Bianchi Acosta, Even Bech Næsheim/Isak Valtersen, Joana Bianchi Acosta & Niccolò Fares, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Niccolò Fares/Martino Rametta
Series: this whole damn city thinks it needs you (but not as much as I do) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1553239
Comments: 1
Kudos: 48





	though it hurts we keep on climbing (kill our way to heaven)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Kill Our Way To Heaven" by Michl, which really sets the mood for the fic and also is a massive Hunger Games song, at least for me.
> 
> Alright, so this is a bit of a different vibe/style than the other fics in this series, but I hope you guys enjoy, anyways! The two sections of this story, from Joana and Cris' POVs, will have rather different tones, but I hope you guys like it.
> 
> Also, for the commenter that asked for the Evens getting some comfort from each other- I don't know if this was exactly what you wanted (I'm not entirely sure if it's what I planned for when I first started writing this, even) but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

_Oh my heart was flawed I knew my weakness_

_So hold my hand consign me not to darkness_

_So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down_

_I'll never wear your broken crown_

_I took the road and I fucked it all away_

_Now in this twilight how dare you speak of grace_

**_-Mumford & Sons_, Broken Crown**

**Joana**

She sometimes thinks about what would have happened if one of them had been seriously wounded in the Games. A hand lopped off, an eye cut out. Enough that they wouldn’t have died, but enough to ruin them for the Capitolites. Enough to keep them _safe._

“Some of them are kinky for that shit,” Nico informs her. He’s four drinks in at a bar and his tongue is a bit loose and she knows that he misses Marti, who never does anything more than brush pinkies with him in public.

Joana’s lip curls backwards. She’s only been stuck on this job for a couple of months, now, but she has no illusions as to what the Capitol will do to get what they want.

After all, there are rumors that Cris and Joana’s win in the Hunger Game was fixed. Rumors that certain Capital citizens have gotten bored with so many boys being churned out- that most Capitol citizens were satisfied with whatever whore they could get their hands on, but that some Capital citizens only wanted a girl, and that the last time a girl won the game was the 73rd Hunger Games, with Eve, who they were starting to get bored of.

Yes, it doesn't hurt that Joana was a Volunteer, a Career tribute from District 2. It doesn't hurt that Cris is a bit of a genius, with an eye for machinery. They had an advantage going into the Games, especially when they decided to partner with each other even during the training section of the Games. 

But it also doesn't hurt that they were both two gorgeous young girls, that the Capital has been craving female flesh for years and that they fit that bill perfectly.

There were a few small details about their Games that spoke to a luck that was a little too far weighted in the girls’ favor. A river that ran by the place they chose to make camp, a rather conveniently placed sword at the edge of the Cornucopia, near to Joana’s pedestal, a length of wire in the bag of a tribute Joana killed that Cris was able to use to harness lightning and fry several tributes at once during one of the several storms that had plagued their perpetually twilight-lit arena.

Joana has the feeling that even a bad wound or an amputated limb wouldn’t have stopped certain Capitolites from wanting to fuck her or Cris, not with the effort that the Gamemakers put into keeping them alive.

“You’re probably right,” Joana says, looking at Nico, at the glittery makeup smeared over his eyelids, at the dark red suit with an even darker shirt held together by only the bottom two buttons, showing off a clean-shaven torso (more likely laser-shaven, to keep it from growing back), at the way that even now, when they're not at an appointment, he is making sure to keep his posture slouched and open in a whore's _come look at me,_ legs spread a little wide as he leans against the bar counter, watching the Capitolites with a practiced eye.

She looks at him, looks at the facade the Capitol has wrapped him in, looks past the makeup and the _fuck-me_ eyes and the suit that bares everything, and s he sees the pain in him. She sees the selflessness and desperate love and just a bit of self-hatred that it took to say _take me instead_ when the President had said, eyes cold, all of the cards in the Capitol's hands, "One of you will give yourselves over to the service of the Capitol to repay us for the generous gift of your life. You get to decide which one."

Nico looks back at her, focusing on her instead of the crowd of Capitolites in the bar for just a moment. His green-brown eyes fix on her, reminding her of the moss that grows on the mountains back home, the mountains that she would have gone and mined if she hadn't been selected as her year's Volunteer for the Games. "You know," he says, teeth pulling slowly at his lower lip in a move that would read as enticing to the crowd but somehow just reads as a nervous tic to her. "She's in love you."

Joana knows he isn't specifying who the "she" is because naming Cris would ruin the facade that the Victor-whores have to maintain- that their relationships with their partners are nothing but physical. The crowd around them, if they heard his comment, would coo over the fact that some random Capitolite has fallen in love with Joana, rumors swirling over the identity of the mysterious woman whose heart has been captured by the cold-hearted vixen from District Two.

But the thing that matters is that Nico doesn't have to specify. Joana knows that Nico knows who the "she" is. She knows who the "she" is, too- she knows it every moment that Cris whispers stories to her beneath their sheets, every moment that they cook bad food together, every moment that they kiss, every moment that Cris looks at her like Joana has somehow hung the sun.

She knew it from the moment that Cris killed those tributes and they were announced Victors of the 78th Hunger Games, when Cris had looked at her, blond hair matted with dirt but eyes clear, and had mouthed "we made it" as the hovercraft had descended from the sky.

So she nods. "That she does," Joana says with a whore's smirk, the same one that fits onto Nico's lips more casually, what with his two more years of practice than she's had. Her tone is heavy and teasing as she says: "Just as he's in love with you."

A random Capitolite coos at the two of them, his sparkle-blue-dyed lips delighted at the exchange, but Joana is just fixed on the way that something softens in Nico's face, something behind the smirk and the eyeshadow on his half-lidded eyes and the posture. She is fixed on the way that the mention of Marti relaxes him, even if the relaxing is subtle to the eye.

The two of them, these Victor-whores, exchange this moment below the lights and pounding music of this Capitol bar, and for just this moment, they have someone who understands them, who acknowledges their love in this Arena that they live in.

For this one public moment, despite the fact that they will find themselves in the beds of Capitolites by the end of the night, they are in love. They are understood.

They are not alone.

**Cris**

Joana told Cris very early on about the deal, before they've even kissed for the first time. She tells Cris about every single sordid detail, about exactly what she's getting herself into.

Cris isn't one to give in to despair. She isn't going to take things lying down. She thought her way out of that Arena with determination and grit, wanting to survive above anything else.

And so Cris goes to Isak and Marti, all of these other Victors that she knows are going to the same things that she is. She would go to Lucas, but he's a notorious shut-in, rarely leaving his and Eliott's apartment save for piano "concerts" for Capitolites. He rarely shows up at galas and parties, and when he does, he usually ends up hanging out in corners, gaze trained on Eliott as he makes his way through the rooms, worry clearer than any of the other Victors'. 

(They've all heard the rumors about how much worse the Capitolites that Eliott gets are. About the fact that Eliott, for some reason, is willing to take on the worse clients, willing to take the worst of the brunt, willing to take the most perverted and deranged clientele. Cris can only imagine the amount of damage that is doing to Eliott, to Lucas, the amount of worry that Lucas must feel that must somehow eclipse hers for Joana.)

So maybe she'll visit Lucas tomorrow, but tonight- she wants answers from as many people as possible. And so she goes to Isak and Marti, who are both hanging out on Isak's roof, as they do plenty.

“There has got to be something we can do to fix things,” she says to Isak, to Marti, her fifteen-year-old killer’s hands steady against her legs as she speaks to two other killers. “There has got to be some way to save them.”

There is a glint in Isak's eyes, matched by a question shaping Marti’s lips. “You think there’s a way to save them,” Marti says, gaze hard.

Cris nods. “There has to be, doesn’t there?”

“Of course there’s no way to save them,” Isak says, face stony, but there’s something in his gaze that lets her know just how much he's holding back right now.

Cris holds up her small device. It’s nothing much, nothing bigger than a stylus that they all use for the tablets that were built back in her home of Three, the home that feels like a completely different world from the one they live in now. She presses the top of the cap and holds it out to them. “We’re completely safe from being overheard,” she says, and Isak’s eyes go wide as he reaches out to the stylus, something almost hopeful in his expression. “It’ll only last for five minutes, but we can talk freely.

“How’d you make that?” Marti says, voice half-suspicious, on the edge of hope.

“We developed them back in Three,” she says with a shrug, “To get some peace from Peacekeeper interference.” Then her gaze goes hard as she thinks of Joana, stuck in some Capitolite’s bed. “Now, let me repeat myself- there has to be something we can do to save them. And I know that you know, so fucking _tell me_.”

“There’s a revolution,” Isak says, no preamble, no warning. “Eskild, from my District- he’s our connection to District 13, where it’s rising up. Even, me, Marti, even Eliott- we’re all working on getting it through.”

Cris’ brain quickly works through the existence of District Thirteen, refusing to stumble into shock and instead moving onto bitter hope. “And we can save them? District Thirteen will help us get them out?”

Marti nods, looking from her to Isak to the handwoven bracelet on his left wrist. His right thumb rises up to run over it as the smallest, most tender of smiles crosses his lips. "I think we can," he says, a tentative hope swelling in his voice, piercing her heart with the pain clear, the risk of everything that they'll be embarking on.

"I know we can," Isak confirms, "As long as you can make us more of those." He gestures towards the device in her hand, and for the first time in months Cris is giving someone a relieved smile.

"Easy," she says, and hands over the one in her hands.

-

Cris gets back to her and Joana’s apartment that night and finds Joana laying in bed, changed into a plain t-shirt and shorts, something that she knows feels far more like their Districts than it does like the Capitol.

She runs forward and into Joana’s arms, both of their arms encircling each others’, and they fall back into bed together, hands in each others' hair, lips on each others' skin, legs entangled and arms forming shields around each other.

Cris kisses Joana's forehead, just as she has done since the middle of their Games, just as she has done every night that Joana has come back from appointments, sometimes stoic, sometimes crying, sometimes so far gone into her own head that Cris can't read her emotions, can do nothing but hold Joana until she comes back to herself.

Cris knows that Joana feels safer in her arms than she does anywhere else in the Capitol, just as Joana knows that Cris feels the same with her.

Joana saved her in those Games. She continues to save her, every night that she goes out and lays with those Capitolites, let them use her body as they wish.

And now it's Cris' turn to save Joana back. She's going to help the Revolution, however possible, doing whatever needed, if it means getting Joana out of here, out of the beds of those Capitolites and to freedom, where Joana can smile and paint pictures that aren't just for Capitolites and kiss Cris in the open and never, ever again have to bear the darkened gaze of Capitolites.

"I love you," Cris says into Joana's dark hair as she spoons Joana.

"Tambien te amo, querida," Joana replies, voice husky and low as she says the same words to Cris, but in the long-forgotten language of her District. Joana has told her the story of those words: the promise whispered into the dark air of their apartment is an oath that has been spoken for generations of District citizens, rumored to come all the way from before the Dark Days themselves.

If all goes to plan, then hopefully they'll be able to say those words aloud, in District Thirteen, or maybe, in some unimaginable someday, in the Capitol itself, after the revolution has brought another rebellion around- hopefully without another Dark Days.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys liked it! This is a bit different than my normal fare for this 'verse, but the story called for split POVs and this kind of style, so I hoped it worked.


End file.
